How Australia's postwar promise of a land of opportunity came true for Julia Gillard's family

It was advertised on giant billboards as "Britain in the sun", a land of endless opportunity – and for Australia's newly appointed prime minister, Julia Gillard it proved to be just that. Her parents were among the many Britons who took up an offer by the Australian government, which ran from 1945 to the early 1970s, to relocate Down Under for just a tenner. Seduced by the "bargain of the century" and the prospect of a tan all year round, about 1.6 million Britons keen to escape grey skies, postwar rationing and class-bound British society embarked on a month-long (one-way) journey by sea to the so-called promised land – in the Gillards' case, from Barry, in south Wales.

The migration scheme, advertised in glossy brochures and on promotional films, was the one of the biggest in Australia's history, and designed to populate its shores and bolster its burgeoning postwar economy. With a "white Australia" policy then very much in force, Britons – who famously became known as the "10-pound poms" – were regarded as the perfect candidates for the task. They were lured with the promise of jobs, housing and sunshine, but in truth they had no idea what to expect as they waved goodbye to familiarity.

Kylie Minogue's Welsh-born mother, Carol Jones, was 12 when she joined her parents on the SS New Australia on 20 April 1955 and Hugh Jackman was born a year after his family settled in Australia in 1967. While most families embraced their new life and tried to ignore the "pommie bashing" and resentment from Australians who feared for their jobs, others were haunted by homesickness, the harsh landscape and hot days, the snakes, spiders and the ever-present flies. Some found the population racist, the hostel accommodation inadequate and work scarce and about a quarter returned to Britain. As the authors Alistair Thomson and A James Hammerton write in their book, Ten Pound Poms: Australia's Invisible Migrants: "Life in Australia had the potential to be anything from wonderful to horribly disappointing."

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